Apnea destroyed my career

If I could wake up and be fresh and rested, by now I would be making up to around $500,000 a year, but because of this problem I won't be making $5 a year soon. Sleep Apnea is not fair. If I was an alcholoic or drug addict and had that problem, it would be easy to fix. just don't drink or take drugs, simple as that. But with Sleep Apnea, it doesn't work that way. We can tell ourselves ok, we will breath tonight and not choke in our sleep, but it doesn't work that way does it. Iim so mad about my career, it's all over. However, as I mentioned before, I will get back and if there is any consolation, I will solve sleep apnea, and I will NOT HAVE SLEEP APNEA ONE DAY. I might go homeless one day, you know my story, but I will not have a machine over my face when Iim collecting change. I'm so mad right now over all of this, it's finally hitting me.

giantred wrote:I tried an older machine set at 10, but I never felt good in the morning. It felt like it gave me too much or not enough pressure, if that makes sense, I could never figure it out. It felt like this, as if air was getting stuck in my lungs and my brain felt foggy constantly. So they put me on Auto flex.

If you're leaking your therapy air out your mouth, you're going to feel like crap no matter what your pressure setting is. And, if your pressure is not adequate, that would be another reason.
Whoever "they" are........are idiots.........and don't know how these machines work.

Here are the instructions for getting into the setup for the machine you say you have. I would suggest that you go into the setup and write down EVERY setting that you see. Don't change anything yet, just write them down as you go through them and report them back to us.
I would suggest doing a copy and paste of the following instructions to a file on your computer (like Wordpad) and print them off so you can read them while you're using them to go through your machine setup.

By the way, what operating system are you using on your computer?


Den


REMstar Auto w/C-Flex Setup

When in the Setup Menu, the humidifier ^ and ramp v buttons operate as up and down keys to change the settings, the left/right user buttons < > allow you to go to the previous/next question or setting, and the pressure start/stop button is used to exit the Setup Menu. Holding the humidifier or ramp buttons down will cause the values to change more quickly.

To enter the Therapy Setup Menu, hold the two top user buttons < > down while plugging in the power cord.
Continue holding the buttons down until the REMstar Auto w/C-Flex beeps twice.

Note: The word "setup" will appear on all of the screens indicating that you are in the Therapy Setup Menu.
(If you press the Pressure start/stop button, you will exit the Setup Menu.)

A. Compliance hours/nights: (recommend leaving alone, but CAN be cleared at this point)
Select next setting with >

B. Therapy mode: (CPAP/CFLE/APAP/AFLE) select with ^ or v
Select next setting with >

B1. If CPAP or CFLE select pressure setting: Select with ^ or v
Select next setting with >

B1a. C-Flex mode (if you chose CFLE mode): Select setting 1, 2 or 3 with ^
Select next setting with >

B2. If APAP or AFLE, select minimum pressure setting: Select with ^ or v
Select next setting with >

B2a. If APAP or AFLE, select maximum pressure setting: Select with ^ or v
Select next setting with >

B2b. C-Flex mode (if you chose AFLE mode): Select setting 1, 2 or 3 with ^
Select next setting with >

C: Ramp time setting: Select with ^ or v
(ramp time will be turned off with a setting of 0:00)
(if using APAP or AFLE mode, Ramp setting MUST be set to 0:00)
Select next setting with >

D. Ramp pressure setting: Select with ^ or v (use only in CPAP or CFLE mode)
Select next setting with >

E. Patient disconnect setting: 1 = on 0 = off Select with ^ or v
Select next setting with >

F. Buttons lights setting: 1 = on 0 = off Select with ^ or v

(Last setting. Use On/Off button to exit Setup)


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A-pnea simply means not-breathing.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) means your airways obstruct when you sleep, and you can't breathe.

A properly set up Positive Airway Pressure machine can keep your airway open, and assure you of proper beathing all night through. Your machine is not set up properly.

Wulfman wrote:If you're leaking your therapy air out your mouth, you're going to feel like crap no matter what your pressure setting is. And, if your pressure is not adequate, that would be another reason.
Whoever "they" are........are idiots.........and don't know how these machines work.

Choking through the night wears us down, makes us irritable and depressed, makes it difficult to concentrate.



O.

giantred, I'm a Soldier in the Army and I just found out that I also have Sleep Apnea. From the information that I've gathered from friends and family, I've had this for a very long time without knowing it. As of today, I have been in the Army for 18 years, 6 months and 27 days. I'm a Staff Sergeant and I too have had trouble at times in the past with waking up but not knowing why. In a way I wished that I had found out about this sooner than I had. I might have been a nicer person to get along with and might have had a few more friends. One thing I will say though, if I had ever had the chance to change my past, I wouldn't. I've met a lovely young lady who is my wife now, I've had fun while serving, and I also got to blow things up from a 70tn tank. Stick with the treatment, find the stuff you have to help you figure out how to improve your treatment and listen to the advice that has been given by the folks here who are smarter than me on this stuff. Best I can tell you is stick to your guns and make the treatment work for you.

David

giantred,

Yes, sleep apnea can destroy careers - and lives. Watching my career and health slip away in increments made me angry, depressed, worried, confused, ashamed, and yes, BROKE. Being from strong stock, I was able to keep pushing for a lot of years, but when I finally crashed, it was a total collapse of my entire being. I heard an illustration once that if a frog is put in water that is then very gradually heated to boiling, it won't recognize the danger until it is too late to save itself. Like that frog, by the time I realized how far gone I was, it was as if I had crossed some invisible line and fallen into a vortex.

Why am I telling you this? Because you are letting time pass as if it has no value in the outcome of your situation. Have surgery if you want, but that's not immediate or guaranteed. Try a dental device, but again, what about now? The machine you can use now - and continue using until you do something else and prove it is working for you. I don't know what your specific issues are with the machine. I agree with others who say it may not be set up properly to meet your needs. You may have stopped trying just short of success. (By the way, about 2 hours into your sleep may be when you've reached REM, where apnea is often at its worst.)

You don't have to like having OSA. Or its affects on your life. Or using a machine. There was a thread recently about people being angry about the different aspects of this. Anger can be a catharsis, an impetus to action, or a millstone around the neck. That's a personal choice. I do hope you determine to use whatever treatment necessary to preserve your future, and that your future will find you thoroughly enjoying it.

Kathy
(Who recently, after a 3 year wait, had both the misfortune and good fortune of being declared disabled - Ribbet!)

You need to try a full face mask because I think you're likely (as another poster said) losing all the good air through your mouth. If anyone's ever seen you sleep (beyond the first few minutes) ask them if you have your mouth open. Also if you sleep on your back, it's the worst position to be in for apneas.

GiantRed: apnea destroyed my (former) career too, and I'm surprised it didn't do MORE damage in my life (like to my marriage). I'm a former stockbroker. I left the field just as the markets were starting to crash (a lot more peoples' careers have been destroyed by that, too).

I'm in the process of rebuilding my life since diagnosis (6 months after I stopped working) and treatment (I'm 5 months in now). I was out of work for nearly a year but am back working again, not as a stockbroker. I had given up on that career without knowing that apnea was behind my lack of capacity.

I think there are probably lots of us here who really suffered in our work because of apnea.

I hope you are able to find the information you need here. I understand your anger but I hope you don't stay angry without using it to find solutions.

I've been using CPAP for about a month now. NO sleep studies. Bought a unit of craigslist. I can't believe how much my life has improved. Maybe i was lucky, i must have got the pressure right, seem to have a mask that works. I just can't believe how I've been walking around in a fog for 8-10 years and didn't know it. I'm losing weight, I can stay awake during the day, I don't have headaches, I'm not irritable anymore. Stick with therapy, no matter what, it's priceless. It's given me my life back. STICK WITH IT

Do you know what your titrated pressure is? An APAP works best within a limited range. The bottom number on the APAP should be no more than 2cm below your titrated pressure. At a 4, that would mean your titrated pressure would be 6 and it is rare for someone to have a pressure that low. Most likely, your pressure is somewhat higher than that. The APAP moves up the pressure gradually. If it is starting at something super low like 4 and you needs something like 10 or 11, it takes the machine too long to get there and allows too many apneas resulting in continued poor sleep.

You can fix this, even without surgery. Surgery rarely cures sleep apnea. The best it usually does is reduce your AHI by half and that is rarely enough to not need a CPAP.

Don't get mad, get even ....... with your condition. I recently discovered that I have OSA, which has affected my productivity and quality of life for years I'm sure. To do well in my career and to satisfy my own expectations (set aside the financial aspect for the moment), I need 100% of my energy and mental powers. Working with colleagues, writing reports/manuscripts, dealing with regulatory authorities, understand highly complex data sets .... not going to happen very effectively in a state of near-exhaustion. The last time I was this exhaused it was because of a massive tumor in my chest, undiagnosed for years. On diagnosis, I couldn't wait to get hooked up for weekly i.v. chemotherapy infusions and to get irradiated. That was 10 years ago. My present situation isn't so different in the way I'm talking about - what else you gonna do, throw in the damned towel?

My advice to you is simple: apply the intensity that you have used in the past to achieve success in your professional life to your present problem. Consider it your #1 problem to solve at the moment and go after the solution every way you know how. Get the equipment you need, including the blasted software without which you're just playing a guessing game, and become a student of the art. Work with your doc but also take full responsibillity for your own wellbeing and learn from others who have been down this road. Your posting on this forum is a very good sign, kudos to you for that, it took guts IMO.

It may not seem fair that you suffer this way but many people suffer very badly indeed from diseases that they had no role in developing and for which, sadly, effective solutions are still lacking. Consider yourself lucky that there is technology available that can make a big difference to your life, and that you yourself can control (I love that part about it ...). I work daily on large databases from clinical trials (Phase 2 and Phase 3) on hepatocellular, colorectal, lung, prostate. pancreatic and other cancers. Alongside each of those columns of overall survival and time-to-progression data is a column of code indicating a "0" or a "1" associated with each value. The former means that an "event" has occurred, death or tumor progression (>20% increase in tumor size), the latter means either no event yet or lost to follow-up (patient drops out of study, cannot be contacted for status, etc). In most of the studies I work on, as time goes on and the clinical data mature over the months, the 1s almost all convert to 0s. Very very sad.

My point? Life can be tough and it can seem unfair, but it's a whole heck of a lot better than the alternative. Do yourself a huge favor and quit feeling sorry for yourself and feeling mad in a futile sort of way. That isn't what got you to where you were in life - and can be again. Instead, BEAT THAT SUCKER DOWN with your own efforts. Good luck to you, we'll be following your progress if you care to keep us posted. I'm rooting for you and I hope you're rooting for me.

Best ....

I'm with you on this. I was recently diagnosed with OSA and just began CPAP last Wednesday. My work performance has suffered greatly.

My work performance suffered before CPAP. Now it is a hundred times better. I am a programmer, I need to be awake and sharp and hold multiple iseas in my head at one time. This wasn't happening during the winter, I was beginning to hate my job again. Now after 2 months it is so much easier, like I jumped several points in intelligence.

You want your life back with bells on? Make the therapy work! You and only you are responsible and will benefit from making it work. Tackle it like a work problem, study all the details, try all the options. It is just a new piece of equipment that has to be brought up to spec and integrated into the daily process. Like a new iPhone and its apps.

giantred,

I lost my legal practice due to sleep apnea, was on disability for 30 months during which time I had five in-hospital surgeries (moving the base of my tongue forward & screwing it down in a new & different place, German nose job - they made it bigger, etc.), and the last two entirely cured me for 15 years. I went to work for my local court as a research attorney as I had been their principal litigation pain in the rear for years, with my jaws so tightened up by having been wired shut for two six week periods in the five months prior to returning to work, that I could barely talk. But I could read immense stacks of files and write memos like a demon, so it was basically a match made in heaven.

I intended to return to private practice after two years, but stayed on because my twin sons were then 15 and I realized that they'd grow up and leave without my really noticing given the 80-100 hour weeks required for several years to rebuild my practice. And the judges are wonderful clients compared to the ones I had in private practice. I miss winning, but I love my job and plan to retire in 7-10 years. So there is life after sleep apnea.

Now it's come back at me, but so far in a manageable form, and there are far, far more resources available to deal with it than when I had it before in the early 1990's. I am familiar with on-line communities, and this is definitely one of the better ones. So don't lose hope. The people here can help you work through this. And I am proof that your career isn't over. Mine was only temporarily interrupted by sleep apnea.

BTW, I am really, really familiar with all the possible surgeries. My eventual cure was the old nasty one where they cut away the entire upper half of my lower jaw and moved all the teeth back a space, wired my jaws together for six weeks, waited six weeks, and then entirely cut away both my upper and lower jaws, mined the tip of my chin and the top of my skull for bone, and used that to extend my upper jaw by 1/4"and my lower jaw by 1/2". Followed by another six weeks with my jaws wired shut. I know lots and lots of blender recipes. And there was staggering pain (TMJ syndrome) when the wires were removed. I carried a little card for a year stating that, if I was unable to talk, to call my surgeon and tell him my futile bone had popped up. It never did, but it tried.

All this worked. For almost a year. Then my lower jaw decided it didn’t like its new location, and retracted a lot. So they redid the lower jaw surgery. My lower jaw is now 5/6” longer than the one I was issued, and I have the most amazing profile. Plus my lower lip and lower jaw have been numb and tingly since about 1993 when they screwed my tongue down.

There is a much less arduous surgical Final Solution to the Sleep Apnea Question these days. My identical twin sons had it – a variant of an orthodontic procedure used for children whose jaws are too small for all their teeth. It consists of cracking the front of both jaws, between the front teeth, and insertion of two expanders inside the mouth with itty bitty cranks to gradually widen the front of the jaws over a period of several months. So they’re cured.

My sleep apnea has now returned, but due to an extreme and unusual dry mouth/dry throat condition which my doctor believes is due to some sort of auto-immune disorder. I’ve had a saliva deficiency for as long as I can remember, and dry-eye for about eight years. This new sleep apnea seems to be treatable, which is why I’m here.

But if I could make it, so can you.

Tom,

I was about to skip reading this thread, but I am glad I got to your post. You have quite a story of human perseverance.

I feel like a wimp.

Rooster, the scary thing was when my surgeon asked for pictures of my children and diagnosed my sons' sleep disorder based on their jaw shape. So they had their first sleep study with my last sleep study, in August 1994, and were diagnosed with upper airway resistance syndrome. Pluls the sleep specialists and my surgeon assured me that my sons would be disabled with OSA before they were 30 absent treatment. I discovered that my county's health insurer was real nasty, and spent years surrepticiously building a record of medical necessity for my sons' surgery before going at 'em for treatment of my sons. That was right up my alley as a litigator.

Plus I had the money by then to pay for my sons' sleep equipment and surgery on my own. I did the latter first, upon receiving the first denial of benefits, and then appealed. Their own experts told them they were completely wrong, based on the record I had built. And public employees aren't bound by ERISA plus I knew every insurance bad faith counsel in the San Joaquin Valley. So they caved on the equipment, and didn't put up much of a fight for the later surgery, knowing that I'd pay for that too and then sue them for bad faith.

They did balk at the orthodontist bills for installing the expanders in my sons' jaws prior to their surgeries, but I ran that over by pointing out, "If it makes the bite of their jaws worse, it's surgical and you pay for it. If it makes their bite better, it's orthodontic and I pay for it." Plus I pointed out that I had paid $7000 for my sons' orthodontia when they were little, and faced having to pay $11,000 for it all over again when they were in college.